The study defines sleep texting as “responding to or sending a text message while in a sleeping state”.

The report reads: “The beep or buzz of the cell phone indicating that a call has come in awakens the sleeper, who instinctively reaches over and responds to the message. This action can occur once or multiple times during the sleep cycle."

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Most of the 25.6 per cent who said they had sleep-texted also said they had no memory of doing so when they woke up. 72 per cent had no memory of sleep texting and 25 per cent had no memory of what they had sent.

Survey author Elizabeth B. Dowdell told Metro: “The majority of the sleep-texting students had no memory of the texting behavior as well as who or what they texted.

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“The lack of memory is not surprising as sleep research has found that people awakened after sleeping more than a few minutes are usually unable to recall the last few minutes before they fall asleep.”